Category Archive

Hello! I can tell from the stats that people are still reading this blog, thanks for reading! Do I apologize for my absence? Yes. Was my absence felt? I don’t know. That is the big question about blogging for me. Why am I doing this, what is it all for. It often feels like glorified navel gazing. Sometimes it feels like I have a cause, to make the world a more beautiful place, to share things I love with others. And then other times I feel like I am just throwing my ideas in people’s faces yelling, “isn’t my life wonderful!” Which it is of course, but I just crop pictures really well. I crop all the messiness and the chaos out so it can’t be seen.

I wish I could say that I spent the last few months trying to come up with an answer to the reason “why I blog,” but I didn’t. I spent it mainly trying to find a job and keep my head above the water financially. Both endeavours, I am pleased to report, were successful!

And now, since I have posted here again, what do I continue to blog about? About books, and cabbages and kings? Sealing wax? Paper strings? Sacred monkeys in the Vatican? Whatever it is I write about I hope you will enjoy.

It’s been apparent these past few weeks that Fall is coming, despite the recent heat wave, and it breaks my heart. Don’t get me wrong, I love Fall! The colors, the smell, the crispness in the air, apple picking, doughnuts, cider, bonfires. And then there are those beautiful Fall mornings when the light is dappled and has a rich, almost wise, quality to it that it lacks the rest of the year. Fall is pretty amazing. But after Fall comes Winter and I die a little inside. I suppose I could think of some noble reason for this, but really I am just cold and I miss the sun.

I believe that love of the Summer heat is rooted in my Italian heritage; Roman women start wearing their furs in late September when it is still sweltering out. Why? My theory is that September is before October, which is before November, which is before December and it’s cold in Rome in December. They are just preparing for the wet, bone-chilling cold that will come then.Now as I think about Fall and coming winter, I remember the most contrary thing of all: I love snow. I am going to stop now, I am starting to confuse myself.

“Have you noticed that Hipsters have all the latest technological gadgets that come from a company named after a fruit, but they like vintage things? And scarves. Why is that?” my roommate pondered out loud the other day.

“I don’t know,” I said, as I scrolled through my twitter feed on my fruit-company produced phone. “I guess they think it’s ironic or something. You know, the dichotomy between old and new.” I stopped for a minute to re-adjust my cashmere scarf, and then propped my feet up on the steamer trunk I use for a coffee table.

As I continued scrolling, I started thinking, “I like vintage things, I have a fruit phone, I am wearing a scarf right now . . . what! No! She couldn’t be?”

“Waaaiiit a minute,” I protested, catching the accusing twinkle in her eye, “are you calling me hipster? I am totally not a hipster! I’ve only had this phone three months. Besides, I liked vintage stuff way before the hipsters.”

Then the roomie started laughing at me. Because I had just uttered the words that would confirm hipsterishness more than anything – I liked ____ (insert whatever it is you like) before _____ (mainstream popularity).

“But I did!” I wailed, “I’ve collected vintage and antique stuff since high school!”

“You own a fruit-computer that you keep in a vintage-book-looking-case.” The roommate continued.

I was going reply that, “I got the case before anyone else knew about them.” But that didn’t sound convincing.

Is it true? As we speak there is a Kombucha mushroom dying a slow and painful death on my counter because I haven’t fed it in a while, but I started the scoby from scratch on my own. And there are Keifer grains in my fridge. Am I a hipster? Nooo, it can’t be true. I love pearls, high heels, and Chanel perfume. I am not a hipster. And I don’t own a bike. There, see that is key, I don’t own a bike. I am not a hipster. And I like Cadbury eggs and black jelly beans which are probably the most processed foods you can find on this green earth. And Cheetos. I love Cheetos.

“Hrumph,” I said, “I am not hipster.” My roommate just continued laughing a me. I think I need to start wearing more preppy clothes or something, loose the scarves for a while. Maybe take sailing lessons. . .

I’ve been thinking the past few days that sometimes it’s the little things that take the most courage:

1) Driving in the 1″ of snow. (I was terrified folks! Simply terrified!)

2) Getting up on time every day without hurling the alarm across the room. (Maybe that is more perseverance. At any rate, I still think it takes courage to get out of bed in the morning – you may have run out of coffee, there is a thought to strike terror into your heart.)

3) Wiping off the customary blank face and smiling at a stranger.

4) Calling the landlord to tell him the heater is broken.

5) Going down to the basement to change your laundry when no one else is home.

My Mom and I had a conversation about hot air balloons while I was home for the holidays. And now memories of hot air balloons keep popping up in my mind.

As a child I would spend time at my grandparent’s home in Napa. The early mornings were always punctuated with the sounds of the propane heaters in the hot air balloons as they would float over the vineyards. I miss that sound. Sometimes we’d sleep on the trampoline in the backyard, and in the morning the balloons would float right over the top of us. People would always wave. Once a balloon landed near the reservoir in the vineyard behind the house.

Just a reminder: the March for Life is next Friday, January 25, 2013 here in Washington, DC. Hope you can make it! The west coast equivelent, the Walk for Life is in San Francisco, CA on Saturday, January 26, 2013.

1/3 of my generation is missing because of abortion. It’s time for our nation to stand up for the unborn and give them a chance to live!

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. ~Mother Theresa

Swinging forward, toes brush the ground and the stomach sinks into the spine. Leaning back and a legs fly up and up, toes pointed to the sky. Gripping the rusty chain of the swing, holding for one moment. One still and quite moment, upside down moment. A moment so small that there is only time to feel a fly-away hair brush the cheek as it continues in its upward flight. Then back down again, manufactured wind stinging the cheeks apple-red with the newfound bite in the air. Hand growing cold on the chain, and then numb. Toes brush the ground again, wet earth smells kicked up for a second. Swinging backward see the ground below, speckled with colored leaves on the green grass.

Sorry for the lack of posting! The past two weeks have been so crazy – crazy fun that it is! Two weddings, baseball games, parties, ballet classes, horseback riding, visiting with friends and family, rooftop bars, beautiful weather, football games, hat wearing, choir concerts and so on and so forth. Not to mention the normal mundane stuff like, laundry and paying bills. But this week is leveling out a bit, so hopefully I will be more consistent! Toodles!

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